A pair of sniggering schoolboys grope the breasts of a 3,500-year-old bust of an Egyptian queen, while a sarcophagus dating from 1500BC is used as a makeshift rubbish bin and a climbing frame.

It sounds like a scene from Carry On Cleo, but it's just another day at the British Museum.

The boorishness and schoolboy antics frequently witnessed in the museum, have forced curators to put the bulk of their precious Egyptian collection behind glass. Documents reveal that staff fear deteriorating public behaviour is putting exhibits at risk.

The papers also show that curators have pleaded in vain with management to put "Do Not Touch" signs in Gallery 4, which houses much of the Egyptian collection.

In a letter in February, Jeffrey Spencer, the deputy keeper of the collection, sympathises with an outraged member of the public who witnessed 17 inappropriate incidents on a single visit...

Vandals sack glories of ancient Egypt, Chris Hastings, The Telegraph, UK, October 08, 2006.

UPDATE: cf. Priceless artefact – or playground furniture?, Karyn Miller, The Telegraph, UK, October 08, 2006.

Centuries of silence cannot keep ancient Egyptian mummies from sharing their secrets with scientists. From archaeologists determining cultural practices to chemists studying embalming, mummies have revealed libraries of information. Now such mummies are also yielding evidence about the diseases of the past by giving up the facts encoded in their preserved DNA, and new research may have pinned down the ancient homeland of a modern scourge.

Leishmaniasis — a disease caused by microscopic parasites, like malaria, and transmitted by sand flies — results in painful skin sores and in its most vicious form causes at least 500,000 deaths worldwide every year. Endemic to northeastern Africa, it also afflicts South and Central America as well as the Middle East; as many as 650 U.S. soldiers experienced it during the first year of the invasion of Iraq. The lethal form — visceral leishmaniasis, also known as kala azar, or black fever in the Hindi language of India, where the disease was first discovered by British doctors — is particularly prevalent in Sudan, and some authorities have claimed it originated there.

Albert Zink of Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich and his colleagues tested the DNA of bone samples from 91 ancient Egyptian mummies and 70 from old Nubia — modern Sudan — to determine if they had suffered from leishmaniasis...

Mummy DNA Reveals Birth of Ancient Scourge, David Biello, Scientific American, USA, October 06, 2006.

Swiss researchers have discovered the 100,000-year-old remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in central Syria.

“This is a big discovery, a revolution in science,” said Jean-Marie Le Tensorer, a prehistory professor at the University of Basel. “It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago.”

He said it was about 12 feet tall, “as big as a giraffe or an elephant.” Professor Tensorer, who has been excavating at the desert site in Kowm since 1999, said the first large bones were found some years ago but were only confirmed as belonging to a camel after more bones from several parts of the same animal were recently discovered.

“We found the first traces of a big animal in 2003, but we were not sure it was a giant camel,” he said...

Not Egyptology I know but I thought it was interesting.

Ancient Giant Camel Found in Syrian Desert Pushes Back History, Reuters via The New York Times, New York, USA, October 08, 2006.

cf. Prehistoric Syrian giant evolved into modern-day camel, Jerome Taylor, The Independent, UK, October 09, 2006.

Tourist guides in Egypt called Sunday for a "licentious" Ramadan television series to be pulled because it shows one of their number, played by popular actress Leila Olwi, "wooing" a tourist.

"In this series, 'Nur Al Sabah' (Light of Day), we see licentious scenes such as when she woos this tourist by dancing," the head of the tourist guides' union, Mohammed Ghareeb, said.

He said that he had called on information minister Anas Al Fiqi and the government censor to ban the series being shown on state-run television since the Muslim fasting month started late September...

Egypt guides angered by seductive portrayal, AFP via Middle East Times, Cyprus, October 09, 2006.

cf. Leila Olwi has been mentioned on this blog before: The Pyramids in Mafia Colors.